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Romney whacks Beijing in WSJ

Under pressure from Republican elites to unveil a bolder policy agenda, Mitt Romney takes to the pages of the Wall Street Journal to dial up his anti-China rhetoric:

President Obama came into office as a near supplicant to Beijing, almost begging it to continue buying American debt so as to finance his profligate spending here at home. His administration demurred from raising issues of human rights for fear it would compromise agreement on the global economic crisis or even "the global climate-change crisis." Such weakness has only encouraged Chinese assertiveness and made our allies question our staying power in East Asia.

Now, three years into his term, the president has belatedly responded with a much-ballyhooed "pivot" to Asia, a phrase that may prove to be as gimmicky and vacuous as his "reset" with Russia. The supposed pivot has been oversold and carries with it an unintended consequence: It has left our allies with the worrying impression that we left the region and might do so again.

The pivot is also vastly under-resourced. Despite his big talk about bolstering our military position in Asia, President Obama's actions will inevitably weaken it.

Putting "climate change" in quotes is an interesting new touch. It's unlikely that China-bashing will satisfy skeptics who question whether Romney has the vision to win a general election (he doesn't actually say in the op-ed why he thinks the Xi summit was an empty event), but it might play well in Michigan.